|
Before we talk more specifically about how to increase audience passion levels, it is important to understand some of the realities of human memory. Researchers tell us that the people with a high degree of product interest can mentally store and name a maximum of seven things in any given category. The lower the product interest, the fewer items they can recall. Considering the complex lives of Americans today, it comes as no surprise that the number of radio stations listed in an average Arbitron diary is 2.5. In order for you to succeed, it is critical that you find ways to cut through and make your radio station one of the first three your audience can recall. This brings us back to the central issue of the importance of evoking emotion from your listeners. Emotion plays a critical role in what we choose to remember. If we meet someone with whom we make an emotional connection, we are more likely to remember that person's name than the name of someone we don't care about.
Beyond the issue of top of mind awareness is the importance of station image. Whether or not a diary keeper has a positive emotional connection with a radio station or air personality will determine whether or not he writes that station or personality down in an Arbitron diary. It is like voting in an election. People don't go out and vote for a candidate they don't have some strong emotion about. If they don't really care about what is happening on your radio station, they will not write your station down in a diary, even if they actually listened to it!
Effective traditional advertising using vehicles such as television, billboards and telemarketing can certainly have a positive impact on top of mind awareness and the image of your radio station. However, audience research across the country shows that most radio listeners find their favorite radio stations or personalities (by an astounding margin over traditional advertising) through word of mouth. But, what is meant by word of mouth? Does your audience have serious discussions of the merits and liabilities of radio stations as we discuss them from our industry perspective? Absolutely not! Word of mouth means that listeners repeat interesting, entertaining, informative or humorous things they've heard on the radio to others. If there is one key to more effectively evoking listener emotion, it is to strive to do things on your radio station that will cause your audience to talk about you.
How can you enhance the emotional connection your station makes with your target audience? Here are seven ways to increase audience passion:
- Think Like a Listener.
Many radio managers and air personalities have become completely isolated from their audiences. They are so caught up in the business of radio that they have lost touch with the consumers' real wants and needs. Get out and observe your audience on a daily basis. Go where they go, read what they read and see what they see. Approach everything that goes on your radio station from the listener's perspective. Ask what relevance does this have to the lives of your listeners and what is its most compelling listener benefit? If it does not have listener relevance or a strong listener benefit, it will not evoke audience emotion!
- Stop Playing it Safe.
Too many radio stations and personalities are playing not to lose their jobs. Air personalities on these stations cling to the basic format like a life raft. Nothing unbuttoned ever comes out of the radio but nothing compelling ever happens either. Safe radio is boring radio and boring does not evoke emotion. No listener has ever chatted around the company coffee pot about "another ten in a row with no talk." In the end, there is no such thing as safe radio. You may keep your job a little longer by not making any obvious mistakes or taking creative risks. But, if you don't win in the Arbitron game you'll be history anyway!
- Reflect Obvious and Topical Events.
Radio stations often omit the things that matter most to their audiences: local, topical and obvious events that impact on listeners' daily lives. We spend too much time talking about things like jingles, audio processing, comedy services and audio equipment, when what really matters to our listeners is content. Music radio stations spend tons of money researching the passion levels their target audiences have for each song. But, often, what happens between the songs is lifeless and unfocused. If you effectively identify and reflect the two or three most important or interesting things on your listeners' minds every day, you'll establish a much stronger emotional connection with your audience.
- Don't Settle for Literal.
Everyone at every radio station in your market has access to the same basic source material. All will tell you that they want to be number one. But few will really go beyond the same, literal reflection of those sources. Challenge everyone at your radio station not to settle for the literal and to seek unique angles or emotional hooks for everything on the air from promos to talk over eight second record intros. What creative, new angle can you find to present promos or the thing everyone in your market is talking about? Fresh and unique perspective on the same old subjects can generate renewed interest and fire audience passion for your product.
- Prep Pro-Actively.
In radio we don't go get something until we need it or know what we are going to do with it. This process must be reversed in order to continually forage for those things that will make strong emotional connections with your audience. Don't worry about how to use an article on the air, just read it. Don't worry about how to reflect the experience on the air, just experience it. Don't worry about how to use an interesting local real character on the air, just get his phone number. These experiences, people and ideas may or may not find their way on the air. However, if you do not gather as much information and experience as you can, you will miss source material with tremendous audience emotion potential.
- Establish Telephone and Appearance Standards.
Every phone or in-person contact you have with your listeners is an opportunity to establish an emotional bond with them. Yet, if you go into many radio stations you'll see all of the lights on the studio phones blinking as they go unanswered. Don't assume your air staff knows how to handle audience contact. Make sure that your air staff understands the importance of answering the phone and being polite to callers. Callers to radio stations are the most active listeners and active listeners are more likely to fill out a diary. Set clear appearance standards for your air staff including dress and demeanor. Instruct your talent to act like politicians and always put their best face first. Have them introduce themselves to everyone at appearances and never snap at bothersome fans. When you talk to one person, you influence ten more by the story that one person tells about his experience with you.
- Plan to Generate Talk.
Don't wait for opportunities for market talk to just happen. Make them happen! Set up monthly creative strategy sessions out of the station to brainstorm ways to generate market talk and press. Invite as many positive, creative people to attend as you can. Ban negative people and responses. Aim for one thing each month designed exclusively to get people in your market talking about your radio station. If they are talking about you, you have successfully made an emotional connection!
|
